


Farewell, Content

by compos_dementis



Category: Brave New World
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gives Bernard a lesson in self-appreciation the only way he knows how: through Shakespeare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farewell, Content

Lenina.

 _"Well, if you liked me, then why didn't you--?"_

A question left unfinished. _"Why didn't I what?"_ he wanted to ask, but kept to himself, biting his tongue hard enough to taste copper. Everyone belongs to everyone else - but no. He remembered Linda, her poor dysfunctional beliefs taken with her from this world, this London world where babies came in bottles and served a ruling order. How she had sold herself to Popé because Popé was the only one that would ever have her, the only one drunk enough to let her lay herself out that like even when he had been married already, far too married--

Lifting him up by his wrist, so light, so light, throwing him into the other room with his shoulder bleeding--

No.

"You're more like what you were at Malpais," John had told Bernard after his dear friend had told him a plaintive story. "Do you remember when we first talked together? Outside the little house. You're like what you were then."

"Because I'm unhappy again; that's why."

John remembered smiling. "Well, I'd rather be unhappy than have the sort of false, lying happiness you were having here."

And Bernard looked like that again now, back to being the Bernard from Malpais that John had liked so much. Dark-haired - oh, but he was always dark-haired, even when in one of those awfully sullen moods that had even those as conformed as Lenina worried. Blue-eyed in a way that John that only ever imagined, darker than his own reflection and far more thought-provoking than Lenina's seashell eyes.

 _My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun--_

Yes, Bernard looked that way again, still an entire head shorter than John himself - about Lenina's height, he supposed - and he sounded the same too, his voice a bit higher than John's and quieter as well. No women flanking his sides in a hurry to get even one look at "the Savage" ( _must_ they all call him "savage"?). No cocky, self-important smirk to push John away. No loud overconfidence.

Just Bernard.

 _\--and yet, by Heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare._

A pity, he supposed, that Bernard should be punished for his inability to conform to the societal norms. Hell, Bernard and Helmholtz both, though Helmholtz treated it more as a writer's reward than a punishment for a anarchist. Again, John felt the sickness of jealousy as being unchosen; _his_ blood should be spilt, _his_ banishment should be ordered - wicked, he'd been terribly wicked, a lecherous villain worse than Popé had been, yet still no redemption awaited him.

"Why must _you_ be sent away?" John asked him, though he knew the answer already. "You've done nothing--"

"That's precisely the reason he's sending me." Bernard looked up from the floor, all of his things now safely packed away in boxes since he would be unable to take anything with him to the island. "Back in Malpais, you were targeted because of your pale skin and pale hair and affinity for heretical literature. Here in London, I'm... I'm targeted because of my stature and beliefs." His voice dropped to a whisper: "They speak of alcohol in my blood-surrogate." Then he released a sorrowful sigh. "But no matter. Can you imagine? Me, an Alpha-Plus, _banished_..."

John could imagine it quite vividly, but only for the lack of understanding of this world which his mother had so dearly loved. Bernard wrung his hands and fell even more silent than before.

"What will you do?" John questioned.

Bernard shrugged. "Something," he replied. "Nothing. Ford, I don't know anymore." Disheartened, he smoothed a hand over the lid of one of the boxes. A plume of dust wafted through the air before him with another sigh. "Where will you go, John? Will you stay here with Lenina? She seems to have taken quite a liking to you."

John's stomach gave a sickly turn at the thought of Lenina, and he shook his head before he answered, "No. No, I... I couldn't possibly." _Impudent strumpet,_ he thought. _Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell._ "No, I want to come to the island with you. I asked the Director, I pleaded with him, I cried him mercy - but for nothing. Thus, I have decided to banish myself instead. I have been... wicked, Bernard. So terribly, terribly wicked."

No response but for the silent blink of Bernard's eyes and the soft shrug of his shoulders. "You're out of your mind," Bernard told him, and John knew this. "You must be. Nobody else here would ever choose to distance themselves from society. You're a brave man, John. I should have realized when I was... calling you a heretic."

Silence at first. John didn't mind; all he wanted, at times, was to be alone. Now he listened, and almost liked being in Bernard's company, almost liked watching Bernard think.

"I'm terribly sorry," Bernard apologized. "So sorry. I do hope you forgive me, I... I've been wicked as well, you see. I thought that if I..." His words faded and he bit his lip as though agonized with indecision and regret. John placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"You've done nothing wrong," John replied. "Absolutely nothing wrong. You've simply behaved as you were... what's the word... conditioned? Conditioned to behave. I suppose I've been conditioned as well, in my own right. You've done no wrong by wanting a world of pleasure, Bernard."

 _The devil Luxury with his fat rump and potato finger._

And Bernard laughed. It would be such a lovely laugh if not for the bitterness that laced the words. "You don't understand. I fear you never will. I've done awful, terrible things... to Lenina, to you, to myself. I'm nothing like what you make me out to be--"

It was John's turn now to interrupt, reaching out and taking hold of the upper arm of his sleeve, holding him there. "That's not true!" A million words, beautiful words, words that could move mountains came into his head, but he just gripped him tight in a desperate attempt to think of the right thing to say. "You're lovely, Bernard. Nothing like the lying hypocrites of this world you live in. Shall..." He swallowed, spoke up again, softer, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate--"

"Nonsense!" Bernard shouted, pushing his hands away. "Utter nonsense, all of it, John!"

Both of them breathed together, but in short ragged breaths that sounded unnatural to the ears. John shouldn't have been surprised. Bernard's eyes were wide and his smaller hands shook with the effort to keep still.

"Keep your propaganda to yourself," whispered Bernard. "Don't tell me those things, those nonsense words, however lovely they are."

"You're already being sent away," John whispered. "What more could they do to you?"

These words made Bernard fall silent, silent enough to avert his eyes and to face to blush. "I'm so alone," he said with a sorrowed moan. "I've only ever wanted to be like other men, to be like the other Alphas, to have the voice of authority, and instead--! Instead I get _this!"_

Angrily, he motioned at himself, and lashed out, shoving one of the vases off of the table. It rolled against the tile floor with a plastic bounce. John analyzed the self-misery rolling off of Bernard's person with every breath, and he took up Bernard's hands in a bravery he'd never felt before, far more confident now than he'd been when Lenina had been tearing off her clothes and trying to throw herself at him.

"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes," John began, tracing the little lines on Bernard's palm like some of the village elders had done to him back in Malpais, "I all alone beweep my outcast state, and trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries, and look upon myself and curse my fate--"

Bernard's hands were smoother than most of the other Alphas with whom he'd shaken hands.

"--Wishing me like to one more rich in hope," he continued, thinking of all the men stronger and more popular than Bernard, and that brief flash of fame Bernard had enjoyed before. "Featured like him, like him with friends possessed; desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, with what I most enjoy contented least."

That mouth opened to argue with him, but in the next second, John's palm blocked any words that would be uttered, and he looked directly into Bernard's eyes, his heart pounding.

"Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, haply I think on thee, and then my state, like to the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth, sings hymns at Heaven's gate..."

His hand dropped only when he knew Bernard would no longer interrupt, and the other man looked at him dumbstruck, eyes softened from their earlier glare of self-pity.

"For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings," John told him from the depths of the truth he felt, "that then I scorn to change my state with kings."

The words finished in their emotional tumble from John's lips, leaving him pale and trembling, and Bernard equally so. With a soft, fluttering laugh, Bernard spoke up, "I never understand what you mean half the time, John," from behind his palm. John released him and felt a sort of rush of sudden bravery, just like the onset of epiphany he'd felt back in the Hospital, only this time, he wouldn't be throwing _soma_ bottles out of the window. No, this time he had something much nicer in store - and as he'd said before, they were already banished; what more could happen?

So he whispered, "Allow me to demonstrate," and pulled Bernard closer, his hands on either side of Bernard's face, more strongly featured than Lenina's had been, and his lips were softer than expected when they met John's own.

John had never before in his life even so much as dreamed of kissing another man. He admitted silently to himself that it was nice, in a sense; nice as Bernard was nice. Small and chaste and close-lipped, but still that tinge of comfort and warmth that would make Shakespeare proud. When it was over, he pulled back and watched Bernard's eyes flick back open with attractive slowness, his face dusted pink to match John's.

"I--"

Neither said anything, though John waited to hear some utterance of approval, of... anything to give hint to Bernard's own feelings.

Instead, Bernard quickly muttered, "I'm going to miss my flight," and in the next moment had exited out of the front door, leaving John alone and feeling empty.


End file.
